Moana

Moana seemed like a completely different approach for Disney at the time, at least in regard to their princess formula. While they’ve often been known to tackle fairy tales from different cultures (even if they were mostly of European origin), this was one of the first that felt like they purposefully wanted to capture an entire culture and allow the audience to actively experience it, and since they can mix that with their traditional Disney trademark of putting a princess in everything, Moana felt like the natural next step for them. The result was another massive success for company. Set on the Polynesian islands of Motunui, a teenage girl named Moana (voiced by Auli’l Cravalho) is the daughter of the chief and wishes to venture outside of her island and travel the seas but is prevented due to her father’s fear of the ocean. Her wish comes true when a miasma starts causing chaos across the waters and killing all the wildlife, putting the live of her family and her village at risk. Being guided by the ocean who has seemingly chosen her to be the one to return the heart of the island goddess, Te Fi Ti, Moana sets out on a journey to track down the demi-god Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson) who is responsible for stealing the heart in the first place. Once together, the two are forced to work co-operate due to Maui’s inability to swim and it forces the two to connect and combine their talents to return the heart and prevent the islands from being destroyed. Taking most of its inspiration from Polynesian mythology, people fell in love with Moana when it was released in 2016. While the competition for most popular Disney princess movie at the time was between Tangled and Frozen, Moana eventually got a place in there as well, with people deeming it one of their favorites. In terms of what it offers on a surface level, Moana does have a lot of good stuff about it, but also has parts that hold it back from being the masterpiece people believe it to be.

In a rare turn of events for some of Disney’s mixed material, Moana actually doesn’t have anything that noticeably wrong with it. It doesn’t struggle with telling its story or handling its characters, it feels like all things consider, it’s a perfectly solid delivery from every angle so it isn’t a surface level fault. Most of the film’s issues really stem from familiar cliches and tropes that have been overused by Disney to a point where even a spin on them are starting to feel old and tiring. Disney movies has a certain checklist for their bigger movies that highlights cliches they are particularly fond of, and after a while, you start to pick up a trend that continues among each princess film like its lead’s central conflict, obstructing parental figures, an animal companions, etc. At this point, Disney was going out of their way to mock these familiar trends in their recent movies, but Moana feels like its relying on these all-too-familiar trends, so it can’t feel as fresh and new as it is presenting itself to be. It seems a majority of people are familiar with these tropes and are more forgiving of them, but these specific ones have been used for decades and it’s hard to ignore them when they are portrayed as acceptable, but not different. The film’s two directors, John Musker and Ron Clements, are Disney regulars who worked on films like Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Princess and the Frog, so this checklist is ingrained within them, and no doubt helped in shaping the film’s narrative structure, while the screenwriter for the film, Jared Bush, wasn’t able to bring more of the new Disney spark that he gave when he wrote and co-directed Zootopia the very same year. While Chris Williams has worked on Disney projects like The Emperor’s New Grove, Bolt and Big Hero 6, other people who contributed to the story like Pamela Ribon , Aaron Kandell and Jordan Kandell don’t seem to match Disney’s style, yet weren’t able to construct a narrative without all-too familiar Disney cliches. Even with this in mind, it’s still well paced, it has good set-up for most of the story and character progression, it does separate time away from the plot and journey to have softer emotional moments, and when it’s all said and done, these cliches aren’t handled as badly as they have been in other films, it’s just that and they weren’t needed in a story that felt like it was really going to invest within a new culture and point of view. You can clearly feel one of the biggest elements of focus was its ties to the Polynesian culture and how to express that through animation, but maybe through that they forgot to reach for new story ideas and instead went for a perfectly serviceable but done-before narrative in order to get things rolling. There are certain parts about the story that act as noticeable updates (not making the two leads a couple, how the villain is handled, etc.) and those aspect do go a long way in making things feel fresher and new, but there’s only so far that a story can be taken when the framework is pretty standard.

The characters work in the exact same way; they are handled perfectly fine, but they are nothing new for Disney and exist within a very marketable bubble that doesn’t have many risks attached. Moana is a free-spirited pure soul who wishes to journey to a far-off place but is never allowed too, and Maui is a goof-off show boater who deep down has a good heart and hides this through his jerky exterior, and the movie doesn’t really do anything to make them anymore than those traditional lay outs. Moana is not a bad characters; she’s likeable and someone you want to follow, the actress does a good job giving her personality and even her journey has its fair share of nice moments, but she just feels like an amalgam of other Disney princesses’ personality types. This is an issue that some princess in the modern era (and even the earlier era) of Disney have suffered with, but this one seems to stand out more because of how much she just seems to check off the list as opposed to operate as her own individual. Maui isn’t given that much more either; he doesn’t feel like a character that has much development throughout the movie despite having a lot of screen-time, and despite having such an iconic name like The Rock voicing him, he isn’t nearly as funny as he should be. It feels like there are various elements that should have been developed more but weren’t given enough attention. Maui is given a backstory that comes out of nowhere and doesn’t impact much outside of a singular scene. The villain looks cool and creepy in moment and the animation overall is simply breathtaking on them, but they’re more of an obstacle than a character and what they do with it at the end is clever, but slightly pointless and could have resulting in some more fulfilling and unique. The reveal actually opens up better possibilities that would have been fun to delve into but weren’t because it had to be a surprise. There are a few other voice actors that are decent like Temuera Morrison and Rachel House, but outside of Jemaine Clement providing a pointless but at least entertaining diversion halfway through the film, the side characters feel very cliched and don’t add much.

The two true shining aspects about this film are its music and its visuals. The animation throughout this whole film is breathtaking; being extremely colorful and vibrant but also being very detailed and realistic. The water effects are outstanding, Disney at this point had a photo realistic style to some of these elements and water was shown off very well here. Since the sea is such a huge component of this movie, it has time to do some fun stuff with it from a visual perspective. Making the water sentient to accompany Moana on her journey is a cute and fun idea, and its ability to not only look realistic, but also interact and have a personality with a noticeable form or expression is very impressive.  It knows to show off the creative locations and ideas that come from the Polynesian culture, being homely and comforting in some areas, and hauntingly dark, but bizarrely colorful in the next. While the movie flaunts the culture in the audience’s face, it’s not only great to see a new culture showcased with such love and passion put behind it, but it’s clearly prevalent throughout the whole movie and that allows for a lot of distinct visuals, musical numbers, landscapes and even creatures. The music done by Lin Manuel Miranda upgrades the movie from being a simple kid’s film and elevates it to something that truly stands out, featuring song numbers that are incredibly unique for the princess brand while still feeling familiar within the genre. Every song is incredibly catchy, memorable, full of wonderful energy and fantastic lyrics, features a good chunk of the culture through language and instrumentation, and have incredibly beautiful melodies. They can be quick, wordy, and funny, as well as slow, emotional, and powerful, it’s a great mix and a soundtrack that was bound to become a classic.

Moana doesn’t feature many elements that can be described as bad in any way, rather it features elements that are disappointingly familiar for this type of movie and that holds its back from being the trailblazer people seem to believe it is. Overall, the film is an enjoyable, likable family film with a lot of things that are worth checking out. Even if the film could have gone further and been more unique, that doesn’t take away from the positives. It’s very well-acted, the songs are great, the animation is amazing, the characters are basic, but likable, its well-paced, it has decent writing, its environments are nice and interesting to look at, it has elements for kids and adults, and it has a fair amount of culture to digest. Though more changes would have been welcome, it’s an entertaining simple flick that is still worth exploring.